


yours is the light

by downmoon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Oisuga Weekend, Past Kuroo Tetsurou/Oikawa Tooru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5066098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downmoon/pseuds/downmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dreamed the first night Suga crawled into bed with him, hazy, vague ideas of temples and conversations with himself, the touch of a lover. He’d forgotten about it, until now, and the little details come flooding back, like he’s dreaming it all over again, and with such clarity he could almost reach out and pull a wisp out of his mind.</p><p>or-</p><p>Tooru's always loved the moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yours is the light

**Author's Note:**

> do you ever go crazy on prompts for oisuga weekend
> 
> there's a few references to anxiety, and a couple brief mentions of panic attacks in this, so please be careful if those things upset you!

* * *

 

 _yours is the light by which my spirit’s born:_  
_yours is the darkness of my soul’s return_  
_-you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars_

 _\- e.e. cummings_  

* * *

 

There’s a naked guy in the pond.

At least, he _thinks_ it’s a guy, given the general...shape...of things. He’s really trying not to stare too much, so he can’t be totally sure, but.

Well, he’s pretty sure.

“Uh,” he says, clearing his throat when it comes out a little too softly to be of use to anyone, “um, hello? Person swimming in the pond? Are you okay?”

He knows he’s not drunk- buzzed, maybe, but nowhere near the level of intoxication that’s surely necessary to hallucinate some guy in the park in the middle of the night. Plus, this is just too bizarre of a situation to imagine.

Tooru breathes out a puff of cool air, watching. The figure hasn’t stopped its movements in the ten or so minutes Tooru had been standing at the edge of the pond, even after he’d shouted out over the water. It’s rather concerning, in several ways, the most prominent of which is the chill in the air. It’s not cold, exactly, but it’s cool enough to warrant a jacket over long sleeves, when escaping from terrible parties, as Tooru had just accomplished. There’s plenty of other things to worry about, but Tooru can’t shake the preemptive guilt of just leaving some drunk guy to catch his death of cold. So he sighs, and out comes another foggy breath.

Isn’t this going to be fun.

He kicks off his shoes and his socks, and rolls his jeans as far up as they’ll go, and steps one foot into slimy, murky, _cold_ water.

“I’m too nice,” he says to himself, picking his way across the pond, toes already going numb. “I’m _so_ nice. Look at how nice I am, risking pneumonia for a stranger who couldn’t wait to take a bath.”

The guy’s stopped moving by now, watching Tooru’s slow approach, although it’s still too dark to really get a look at them. He slips over one or two sludge-covered rocks, his brain running over every curse he knows after he almost falls.

“Hey, hi. So, I know this is pretty unusual, _oh_ my god who put that rock there, ow. Um, so yeah, unusual, but, so is hanging out in the middle of ponds, uh-”

Oh yeah. That’s definitely.

That’s a dude.

“Alright, so, why don’t we go talk out of the water, okay?” he says, trying to keep his eyes averted while shrugging out of his jacket and holding it out to the stranger. It’s definitely not the first naked stranger he’s seen, but it’s _definitely_ the oddest circumstance, and he’s not saying anything, and it’s awkward, and he really just wants to get out of here before his feet have to be amputated.

“Take it, please,” he says, shaking his jacket a little. The stranger stares up at him with wide eyes, but does reach out for the jacket, although hesitantly, like Tooru’s the one doing something strange here.

The hem of his jacket dips into the water when the stranger throws it around his shoulders, but it apparently isn’t too bad, as he seems completely unaffected. It covers enough that Tooru doesn’t feel so weird about looking anymore. Still weird about the whole naked-in-a-pond thing, but whatever. He’s not going to complain too much.

It takes a little bit of coaxing to actually get the stranger to head back to the shore, liberal use of gestures, and then reverting to listing the symptoms of hypothermia, before he gives up, and reaches out to grab the stranger’s wrist. He was honestly expecting some kind of fight, as drunkards are prone to do when someone disrupts their logic with reality, but the stranger is perfectly content to trail behind him, as the two of them slosh through disgusting pond water.

“Where do you live?” he asks, as he does his best to wipe his feet dry on the grass. He’s already convinced about 90% of his body heat is lost to that pond forever, and his teeth have already started chattering, even though putting his socks back on feels like _heaven_.

“Are you close by?” he says, lacing up his shoes.

“Are you listening-” he says, but stops short when he straightens up. The stranger is padding down the street, in Tooru’s too-big jacket, barefoot and bare-legged, glowing like a moonbeam in the spaces between street lamps.

Tooru trips after him, because his conscience won’t let him rescue a possibly unbalanced, possibly intoxicated stranger in the dead of night, and just let him walk off.

"Hey, wait a minute! Wait!"

Tooru's no slouch when it comes to running, but damn is this stranger fast, even in bare feet on these sidewalks he knows for a _fact_ are disgusting. It takes him a little longer than expected to catch up, and even when he does, the stranger’s still walking. Tooru has to grab his sleeve to get him to stop.

"Don't just run off! Let me get you to a bus station or the train or something. I don't want you getting hurt after all this."

He releases the sleeve, expecting the stranger to keep walking, or follow, at least, but he doesn’t. Tooru looks back, and the stranger’s standing there, on the edges of a disc of light, watching him with bright eyes. There’s something intensely familiar about the face.

“Come on,” he says gently, gesturing for good measure, waiting for the stranger to pick his slow way beside him.

Tooru asks as many simply-worded questions he can think of, on the way to the train station, but the stranger says nothing, the soft smile that seems to be ever-present not once leaving his mouth. He follows Tooru straight to the platform, and if he weren’t so tired, Tooru might notice that the stranger’s standing almost uncomfortably close. But his head is almost spinning as it is, racing over possibilities and plausibilities and answers to all these questions of his.

“What’s your name?” he asks, one last probe as the train approaches the station.

He’s not expecting an answer, just another one of those beatific smiles and an echoing silence, so he’s surprised when the stranger opens his mouth, and a rough, rusty voice comes out.

“Suga.”

 

* * *

 

Tooru doesn’t quite realize Suga’s followed him home until they’re standing on the platform at his stop.

“So, is this your stop? I guess I’ll say goodbye then. Don’t worry about the jacket, uh-”

Suga follows him when he sets off down the sidewalk. His apartment’s not far from the train station, and he knows just about all the neighbors. He would’ve remembered someone like Suga, especially if he’d moved in recently.

But Suga’s back to the silence, trailing after Tooru with curious eyes. He gives up asking after a block, because he’s freezing, in his soggy-cuffed pants and long sleeves, and he can’t imagine Suga’s faring any better, even though he doesn’t seem affected one way or the other.

He doesn’t bother trying to shoo him out when he unlocks the door to his building, and even holds the door to the apartment open. There’s a tiny part of his brain telling him that this is A Bad Idea, but it’s being crushed under the steady weight of exhaustion that’s beginning to blur his vision. He would love a bath, and Suga should probably take one, too. His mother’s voice is coming up somewhere in his head, about chills and fevers and cold bodies, but he can’t bring himself to think beyond the thought of his blessed bed.

“I’ll get you some blankets for the couch,” he says, yawning halfway through his sentence. He digs around his drawers for his smallest pair of sweatpants, and pulls out a warm shirt as well, returning to the living room where Suga’s.

Naked again.

He can feel the tips of his ears turning red as he shoves the bundle of clothes in Suga’s arms and turns around abruptly to make up the couch. He’s not usually this flustered by other people, but in fairness, he hasn’t had any time to prepare with sudden nudity or endless silence or wading into ponds. So yeah, he’s allowed a blush or two.

“Are you done now, Suga-chan?” he says, hesitantly craning his neck to peek behind him, where Suga is clothed properly, thank _god_. He turns around fully, and gestures towards the couch. He remembers when he’s outlining the tiny apartment, _bathroom down the hall to the right, kitchen on the left,_ that he forgot the things like teeth-brushing and face-washing, but he’s too damn tired. He strips out of his clothes once Suga’s finally settled on the couch, softly closing his bedroom door, and stumbles into bed, falling asleep before he’d even remembered hitting the pillow.

He’s woken much, _much_ too soon by the sound of a crash, and some scuffling, and his bedroom door being flung open, jolting his sluggish brain into overdrive in an instant.

“What the-”

“Oikawa, why is there a man on the couch?”

Tooru flops back in bed, one hand clutching over his heart as he works on calming his breathing. The pressure of Iwa-chan’s weight on his legs is a little unbearable, especially when the breath thing’s back under control, and he tries to shift so it doesn’t feel like his bones are going to snap, but Iwa-chan is insistent.

“You have thirty seconds to explain this to me.”

“Iwa-chan, you burst in here and expect me to-”

“Twenty nine, twenty eight…”

“Ugh! I found him in the park when I was walking back to the station, hanging out in the middle of the pond.”

“The pond?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense. Oikawa, if you brought someone home, and then kicked them out of your bed, but left them on _my_ couch, I will tear your soul from your body.”

“I didn’t, Iwa-chan! You’re so mean! Are you still drunk?”

Iwa-chan growls and grumbles, and removes his terrible weight from Tooru’s legs, except now he’s stomping back out to the living room, and this is about to be even more of A Bad Idea than Tooru’s.

“Iwa-chan, wait. Wait! He was in the pond, so I waded out to get him, and he doesn’t really speak, so he followed me to the station, and then back here, and I didn’t know what else to do, because he was naked and I had to lend him my jacket, and I can’t very well leave him outside when it’s so cold, and-”

“There are police stations between here and our train stop. You could’ve brought him there.”

“Iwa-chan, come on. Can we just agree to talk about this in the morning? Maybe after I’ve slept for ten hours? Ow, don’t _hit_ , I’m just kidding. Mostly.”

It doesn’t take too much more coaxing, because Iwa-chan is indeed still a little drunk, and Tooru’s always had an easier time rationalizing stupid decisions with him when he’s drunk, and they’re both exceptionally tired anyway. He gets Iwa-chan a glass of water, and one for himself, and decides that he should probably bring one out to Suga as well, at least playing the role of a good host before he gets murdered in his sleep by this stranger.

Suga’s dead asleep, though, when he plonks the glass down on the coffee table, something Tooru very much wishes he were right now.  His mouth tastes stale, like alcohol and cigarettes, but Iwa-chan’s stumbled into the bathroom now, so for the second time that night (morning?), Tooru decides the best course of action is his bed. It’s going to be some talk they have in the morning, no doubt. Iwa-chan usually manages to remember everything he was angry about when he was drunk, and it’s only made worse when he’s sober, but right now, he doesn’t care, and sinks back into his bed.

 

* * *

 

“How do you know his name?”

“I asked, and he chose to give me that.”

“Is he foreign? Does he understand you?”

“I don’t know, Iwa-chan. He seems to, but he hasn’t said anything else since his name last night. Or this morning, I guess?”

Iwa-chan scowls some more, eyes closed and coffee mug held to his mouth. He looks about how Tooru feels- drained might be the word for it. Tooru doesn’t even have the heart to tease him about the dark bruises over his collarbone.

“Well, we’re gonna have to go down to the police station and file...something.”

“Iwa- _chaaaan_.”

“He can’t stay here, idiot! We have no idea who he is, or where he’s from. He might be a criminal, or he might be unstable, and even in the face of those two possibilities, you brought him into our home anyway.”

“Iwa-chan, he’s harmless.”

“You keep saying that, but how the hell do you _know?”_

Tooru puffs out his cheeks, and leans against the counter behind him.

Suga’s in the bathroom, finally taking a real bath. It’d been much of the same that morning; Tooru had shuffled him in, and started to fill the tub, and Suga had started shamelessly stripping.

At least he was prepared for it this morning.

Iwa-chan had dragged him into the kitchen, after catching him standing outside the bathroom door, trying to eavesdrop on Suga, and proceeded to grill him in his loudest, angriest whisper.

“It’s just-” he says, but stops. He’s not sure _what_ it is, exactly, but there’s familiarity to Suga, like they’ve met once before, a flickering memory caught up in the hazy part of Tooru’s mind, something morphing between a dream and actuality.

“He- I mean, I just get this sense that he’s okay.”

“A sense.”

“Iwa-chan, don’t be like that! I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel almost as if I know him, or I’ve at least encountered him once before, maybe a long time ago or something. _Don’t,_ stop! That hurts!”

“He has to go down to the police station. We can’t just up and house a stranger, no matter what you think you feel about him.”

Iwa-chan dumps the last dregs of his coffee down the sink, and rinses out his mug. Tooru watches him with a pout on his mouth.

“I’m going back to bed. You’re gonna take him down to the station after you make breakfast, and do whatever it is you need to do down there, and fix this. Got it?”

“You’re so crabby this morning. Aren’t you supposed to be nicer after you get laid? Maybe you-”

Tooru has to bite his lip to keep himself from shouting after Iwa-chan jabs his side. His pout turns into a scowl, after he hears Iwa-chan’s door shut, but he still pulls a frying pan out of the cupboard and gets to work on food.

 

* * *

 

The police station turns out to be less than helpful.

Suga had fallen asleep in the tub, so Tooru had the joy of discovering that, before getting him up and fed and dressed and out the door before Iwa-chan’s wrath had expanded past his bedroom. He’d tried getting Suga to talk again as they walked down the sidewalk, but he’d been blissfully unwilling to speak once again, or maybe just too tired. He looked like he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.

The officer on duty had looked him up and down, after Tooru announced he had a missing person to report, and raised one eyebrow with some frankly incredible talent.

“We’ll need to take some information,” he says with a sigh, pushing a clipboard across the counter, “and a picture, if you have it.”

“No, I mean I _have_ a missing person,” Tooru interrupts, gesturing vaguely behind himself.

The officer tilts to the side a bit, to look at Suga. His expression of skepticism doesn’t falter in the slightest, probably because he’s had far too many encounters with the college students in this area (Tooru is ‘friends’ with most of them, and they’re mostly terrible). But he’s still annoyed by the obvious dismissal, because as much as he hates to admit it, Iwa-chan is right about Suga, and he needs assistance, dammit.

“Name?” the officer asks, that eyebrow still raised.

“Suga.”

“Suga what?”

“Well,” Tooru says, faltering, “that’s all I have.”

The officer doesn’t exactly roll his eyes, but it’s a close thing. He leans to the side, looking behind Tooru.

“Kid, what’s your name?”

Tooru looks behind himself, curious to see if Suga will answer this question. He’s a little smugly satisfied when Suga says nothing, just smiles.

“He doesn’t say much.”

The officer raises his eyebrow, somehow, even higher, and turns to type something into his computer. Tooru starts shifting from side to side, because whatever the officer’s looking for seems to be taking a while to find. That’s fine, not like he has a stack of homework to finish before 8 AM tomorrow morning.

“There’s nothing in the database for ‘Suga.'”

“Ah, what?”

“There’s nothing-”

“No, I know what you said, but what does that mean exactly?”

“It means that there is no one by the name of ‘Suga’ that’s been reported missing. If your friend there went missing recently, his family might not have reported it yet.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Until we have his full name, or until we hear from a family looking for a person with that name, we can’t do anything.”

“But-”

“I’m sorry, young man, but that’s all we can do.”

And that’s it.

In the back of his mind, Tooru figured something like this would happen. He hasn’t spent hours of wasted time watching criminal dramas for nothing, after all. He’s a little pleased, too, because it means a bit more time to figure out why Suga seems so familiar, even if Iwa-chan will be pissed.

And boy is he pissed.

Tooru was almost hesitant to head back to the apartment, but there was that homework thing, and he can’t just wander around the city all day with Silent Suga in tow, so he had sucked it up and headed back. He explains everything as calmly as he can, and Iwa-chan doesn’t yell, because Suga’s nodding off on the couch, but he _seethes_ , and Tooru knows he’s probably on dish duty for the rest of his life because of this.

“It’s only a few days, Iwa-chan,” he says, “Then we’ll go back and find out if anyone’s filed a missing persons report for Suga-chan.”

He ducks into his room to get started on that homework, and it’s the perfect excuse to avoid Iwa-chan for the rest of the day. He’s mostly come to accept Suga staying with them for a while by the end of the day, but he still frowns darkly whenever Tooru comes out of his room for a break.

Suga sleeps until after the sun’s gone down, and Tooru mostly forgets he’s even there, until his fluffy head pops up from the couch, blinking big, sleepy eyes and peering around like he’s a little lost. Which he is, probably, if one were to get technical about it.

Tooru feeds him and pulls out some more clothes for him, and makes up the couch while Suga slips into the bathroom. He hears the sound of the tub running after a moment. Must be time for another bath then. Maybe he's stumbled across a ningyo, one that prefers tiny, stagnant ponds and ancient bathtubs to bodies of fresh water. Tooru snickers to himself.

He's starting to doze off, staring at his textbook, by the time Suga comes out of the bathroom. He smiles dazedly when Suga curls up at the other end of the couch, willing his focus to sharpen so he can finish up his notes. When he closes his book, and yawns deeply, he catches Suga staring at him from the corner of his eye.

That odd familiarity is back. Suga rests his cheek on the top of his hand, so his fingers are delicately posed, and he’s smiling like he’s content, or indulgent, or amused by Tooru, and he’s _seen_ this before, somewhere. Déjà vu’s hitting him like a punch to the gut, but he can’t grasp the memory firmly enough to see it clearly.

Tooru clears his throat, and something shudders over Suga’s face, The familiar pose drops.

“I think it’s time I go to bed, Suga-chan,” he says, pushing himself up off the couch with another yawn. It’s not late, but he’s been running on near empty all day, and the sweet embrace of sleep is calling to him. He says goodnight, and leaves Suga to his own devices, offering him the TV or the books or his old gameboy, convincing himself that Suga will be fine. He forgets all about it when he crawls into bed, and settles into sleep.

 

* * *

 

“Ah, I’m sorry, Suga-chan! I didn’t even think about classes.”

Iwa-chan had, and he’d made a snarky remark about what to do with Suga while they were both gone all day, before darting out the door. Tooru had woken up late, and was already frantic going through his morning routine, and Iwa-chan’s comment had frazzled him even further.

“There’s leftovers in the fridge, or you can eat whatever’s in the cupboard, or the freezer. God, I hope you know how to use a stove. Uh, yeah, make yourself at home, please. We’ll be out all day, but we’ll be back before dinner.”

Suga doesn’t look too worried. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to Tooru. He looks terribly sleepy again, like he had yesterday morning, and Tooru wonders if he’d slept at all last night.

“I’m sorry, again. You just do you today, okay? Oh, but don’t leave, because you don’t have a key- gosh, I gotta run. Sorry, sorry! See you later!”

Classes drag by extra-slow, because the universe knows he’s anxious to get home, and make sure Iwa-chan hadn't kicked Suga out. He almost runs the entire route home, convinced he’s going to open the door and find a very angry Iwa-chan and a smudge on the wall that used to be Suga, but he’s surprised to find both of them back at the apartment, quiet and calm, and even making dinner. Well, Iwa-cha is. Suga looks like he’s just waking up.

Tooru finds that routine is easy, between the three of them, over the course of the week. Suga sleeps during the day and gets up to whatever during the nights. Tooru and Iwa-chan go to classes and the gym and the laundromat and come home to a perfectly normal apartment. And Iwa-chan’s even loosened up a tiny bit around Suga, although he still pushes for the missing persons report. He makes Tooru go down to the police station again on Friday, but it’s the same verdict as last time. Delivered by the same officer, too.

“We’ll just have to wait a little longer, Iwa-chan,” he says, working on the rice while Iwa-chan mans the stove. “It’s worked out well this week, anyway.”

“Yeah, _too_ well. He’s like a perfect house guest, even if we know nothing about him. I keep waiting for something to happen when I get home.”

“Yeah, but you worry too much.”

“And you don’t worry enough.”

Tooru grins, pleased that they’ve managed to slip back into their old routine, even if it’s still a little wonky with the addition of their guest. Still, it’s a rather nice week, when it’s over.

On Saturday, Iwa-chan gets a text.

“There’s a party,” he says to Tooru, wandering into his room and hovering in the doorway.

“Are you going?”

“I might. Are you?”

“Well, what about Suga-chan?”

“What about him? Bring him along. Maybe some of those idiots know who he is.”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, if you decide to come, I’m leaving around 10.”

He ponders it all afternoon, weighing the pros and cons as he writes out his notes and struggles through math homework, but decides in the end that it should be up to Suga. He hasn’t left the apartment all week, because he has no key, and Tooru’s afraid he might get lost or stolen if he goes out alone, and it might be nice for him to interact with some other people. So he asks after Suga’s come stumbling out to the kitchen for dinner, bleary-eyed and tousled.

“Suga-chan, would you like to go to a party tonight?”

Suga furrows his brow, and fumbles with his chopsticks, and it’s maybe the clearest instance all week that Tooru gets the impression that Suga _can_ actually understand him.

“We don’t have to stay the whole time if you don’t want to. I usually don’t, and that’s how I found you last weekend, in the...pond.”

Suga’s eyes cut up to his, and he’s grinning a little, but the expression soon dips off into one akin to deep thought. There’s a brief movement, and Tooru realizes it’s Suga’s hand, fluttering near his throat, like he’s physically trying to coax words out of his mouth.

“Yes,” he says after a minute, in that same rusty voice, “I will go.”

Tooru tries not to let too much surprise pass across his face. He thinks he does a fair job tailoring it all into a bright smile, given that Suga’s hesitancy seems to disappear.

“Great,” he says, “let’s find you something to wear, then.”

 

* * *

 

Something to wear is a pair of Tooru’s jeans with the cuffs rolled up, and one of Iwa-chan’s old t shirts. It’s not the best work Tooru’s done of dressing someone, but it’s still fun, in a way, digging through his drawers, sneaking into Iwa-chan’s closet. And Suga seems pleased by it, which in turn pleases Tooru. It puts him in a good mood, and he chats incessantly on the train ride over. Iwa-chan ignores him in favor of his phone, and Suga seems to have a hard time paying attention to him, what with the crowds of late nighters coming and going in near constant motion, on and off the train. That’s alright, though- he’s had plenty of conversations with himself.

“Don’t let these people push you around, Suga-chan,” he says, as they climb up the rickety stairs of Kuroo’s apartment. _Apartment_ , of course, used in the loosest definition of the word, since in spirit, it’s realistically more like a frat house.

Of course, right after he says that, Iwa-chan’s knocking on the door, and they’re all being pulled into the apartment, crowded and pushed and thumped on the back. He has to keep looking behind him to make sure Suga hasn’t been completely swallowed by all the people, as they make their rounds.

“They’re obnoxious, I know, but they’re pretty okay people,” he almost shouts, dipping his head close to Suga’s, so he can be heard over the pounding of the music, “I promise.”

He’s halfway out of his jacket when someone shoves a cup in his hand, same for Suga. It’s a bit of a juggle with the coats and the cups and keeping track of Suga, but he gets it all together and leads them down the hallway to the tiny closet where jackets are kept. Naturally, this is where Kuroo’s lurking, Cheshire grin and dark eyes included at no extra cost.

“Well, well,” Kuroo says, gaze flitting over both of them, “look who it is.”

“You act like you’re surprised to see me, Tetsu-chan.”

“I’m more surprised to see you here with someone. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Tooru? Who’s your friend?”

Tooru takes a subtle step in front of Suga, some keen instinct in him lurching with protection.

“This is Suga-chan,” he says, matching Kuroo’s grin with one of his own, sharp around the edges. Kuroo’s unfazed, as usual.

“Ah, so you’ve gotten hitched with one of Oikawa’s nicknames. Do you go by Suga, or…?”

“He doesn’t talk.”

Kuroo frowns, but the expression softens when Suga gestures to his throat, like he had earlier, except this is more deliberate. Kuroo looks down, embarrassed, rubbing at the back of his neck. When he looks up again, it’s with a small, genuine smile and flushed cheeks.

“I’m sorry about that, truly. Let me just start over. Kuroo Tetsurou. Welcome to my humble palace. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. Or, shit. Well, you know what I mean.”

He holds his hand out, and Suga grasps it hesitantly. _His hand looks so small in Kuroo’s_ , Tooru thinks, a weird, flitting thought that passes when Suga smiles bright and charming, and Kuroo laughs a bit.

“Alright, first things first, let’s get you something good to drink.”

Kuroo plucks the cup out of Suga’s hand, and then ushers him along, Tooru trailing behind, weaving his way through all the people towards the little walk-in pantry next to the kitchen. No one raids the pantry at parties, because Kuroo’s strictly forbidden it since the beginning. Anything else goes, though.

Three kegs in the kitchen? Go crazy.

Sex in his bedroom? Use protection, kids.

But the _pantry_ , nope.

He and Suga hover outside the door, because it’s too narrow to fit more than one person, and Kuroo’s kind of all elbows anyway. He pulls a bottle from the highest shelf, and starts sliding back, triumphant. Tooru groans when he sees the bottle.

“Kuroo, no. You can’t give him your awful snake wine.”

“Suga, you’ve got to be a man of better tastes than Oikawa. Would you like habushu, or something else?”

Kuroo grins when Suga gestures towards the bottle, and all three of them head into the kitchen. He digs three cups out of the cupboard, and pours them each a drink.

“Alright, kids,” he says, holding up his cup, “here we go.”

They toast, and sip. Tooru grimaces; he’s had habushu with Kuroo before, and while he enjoyed the gesture at the time, he’s never enjoyed the beverage. Something about the snake staring at him from the bottle. Suga, however, downs his gracefully, which Tooru finds surprising. He’d been banking on his assumption that Suga wouldn’t be able to handle alcohol. Kuroo swallows his drink, and grins, pleased to see Suga’s empty cup.

“Alright, alright, not a bad way to start off the night, Suga. You want another? Oikawa, I’d offer, but I see your taste hasn’t really changed.”

“Thanks, but no. I’ll stick to whatever Daichi gave me earlier.”

The rest of the night turns into a blur, like a smear of paint across Tooru’s mind. Suga’s immediately welcomed, even though he never says a word. Kuroo spins him around the room, with a hand pressed to his back, gently introducing him to others, and he manages to charm each and every person he meets. Tooru sticks close for a little while, happy to diffuse when Kuroo’s getting to be a little too much, but then he has another drink, and another, and he gets caught up in the middle of a conversation with _someone_ , and he loses track of Suga for a while. He forgets Suga’s even _there_ , until Kuroo shoulders his way through the crowd and slinks up beside him.

“So, Suga’s a big hit,” he says, and Tooru’s stomach drops a bit.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in good hands, don’t worry. Where’d you meet him, anyway?”

“I found him.”

Kuroo crooks an eyebrow.

“Found him?”

“He was in a pond last weekend.”

Kuroo actually sets down his cup and turns to face Tooru fully.

“This sounds like it has a story behind it.”

“Not really. I literally found him in a pond. That one in the park by Yaku’s place, you know? Yeah, so I was walking home, by myself, because Iwa-chan was too busy getting busy, and there he was, standing out in the middle of the pond.”

“Like, just...standing there?”

“I think he was trying to take a bath? He hasn’t said why, you know? The only reason I saw him was because the moon was so bright last weekend.”

“Oho, bathing in the moonlight.”

Tooru’s gaze darts to the cord around Kuroo’s neck, and he thinks about all those times Kuroo had told him about crystals and spirits and healing properties, what not to get wet and what not to put in sunlight, his tiny tattoos, the sigils he’d trace over Tooru’s skin.

“That’s powerful magic, Tooru.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t brush it off, man. There’s tons of lore about the moon.”

“I know, you’ve told me plenty about it.”

Kuroo grins, and suddenly, the party’s not so much fun anymore. Sobriety is creeping up with a mean edge, and he’s tired of this dance, pretending interacting with his ex doesn’t hurt. He places his cup next to Kuroo’s and straightens out his shirt.

“Where’s Suga-chan?”

“Left him with Sawamura. He’s probably getting an earful about economics right about now.”

Daichi’s kind of a funny drunk. He brightens up considerably when he drinks, laughs and smiles and chatters much more than usual, and he seems to have captured Suga in whatever story he’s half-slurring out. He touches Tooru’s arm gently when he appears besides the two of them, and insists on handing them both new drinks when Tooru delicately excuses them. The cups are empty, but Tooru doesn’t have the heart to tell Daichi that, not when he looks so happy, waving at them.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Suga-chan, but I’m a little tired, and I think I’ll be heading home now. I’d say you can stick around, if you want, but Iwa-chan’s probably _busy_ , and I couldn’t just leave you here to find your own way home, so I-”

Suga cuts him off with a gesture and a nod towards the closet. It’s easy to slip out of the apartment; just about everyone else is at the point of the night where things will be fuzzy for a while, and the one semi-sober person they encounter is sweet Yachi, who sends them out after making sure they’re alright to get home.

Tooru texts Iwa-chan quickly, _Suga-chan and I are heading home, use protection xoxo,_ then slips his phone into his pocket, and they’re off. It’s colder than it was last weekend, or maybe he’s just drunker, but the air definitely feels cooler than it has any right to. He jams his hands down in his pockets and scrunches his neck down into his collar, trying to keep the chill away.

“So, Suga-chan,” he says, after a few minutes of heavy silence, “did you have fun? Everyone seemed quite taken with you.”

From the corner of his eye, he watches Suga smile slow and soft, his breath clouding as he breathes out.

“Yes. It was- fun.”

“I’m sorry I abandoned you in the middle of it. Kuroo didn’t bother you too much, did he? He’s too much, sometimes.”

Suga shakes his head.

He mostly talks to keep himself awake. He’s not as into parties as most expect him to be, and certainly not as much as Iwa-chan is lately, so two late weekends in a row is exhausting. Once they sit down on the train, it’s hard to keep his eyes open. He even stumbles when they get off at their stop. Suga loops his arm through Tooru’s, and manages to successfully navigate them back home.

He doesn’t really remember crashing into his bed, but he wakes up when the room’s starting to glow with the rising sun, and finds Suga perched on his bed, sleepily watching him. He lifts his arm, holding the covers open, until Suga slides in beside him like it’s the most natural thing on earth. He’s dozing off again with Suga’s head tucked under his chin, and the last conscious thought he has is how comfortable this is, and strangely, how much he’d missed it.

They slip into an odd routine the next week. In the mornings, Suga creeps quietly into Tooru’s bedroom, and curls up close to him. Tooru never objects, and never finds it as weird as he maybe should. He spends half an hour dozing, arms wrapped around Suga’s slighter form, until his alarm goes off, and then slides out of bed. Suga sleeps while he goes to class, and wakes up when he and Iwa-chan get home. They make dinner, Tooru chatters about his day and works on homework, Suga always close by. Iwa-chan avoids them both, and Tooru knows he should address this. He knows whatever this arrangement he has with Suga should be addressed as well, but he finds such comfort in it, like a loneliness he never realized was gripping him dissipating in Suga’s presence. The rational part of his brain reminds him that Suga must belong somewhere, that people don’t just appear and get taken in by strangers. He thinks about this on Thursday, and resolves to stop at the police station on the way home, but it’s just as fruitless as before.

“I think Suga-chan must be an alien,” he says to Iwa-chan, when he gets home. He’s making an effort to lighten the mood, but Iwa-chan grunts and turns back to his books. Tooru tries hard to ignore how easily _he_ was ignored, but it sours his mood as he works on dinner. He knows Suga’s appearance has been unusual, but there’s nothing he can do. Suga’s not missing, as far as anyone knows, and he can’t turn him out on the street. Iwa-chan could be a little more understanding of the situation.

He stews on this all evening, and wastes time thinking about it when he should be falling asleep. Tooru knows better than to dwell on things; it helps no one, and in the end, it only serves to make him more miserable, but he can’t help but think about it. He even wakes up disgruntled, when Suga slips into his room, slowly lifting his blankets and settling comfortably.

Suga’s looking at him so softly, and it makes his chest twinge with something heavy. He’s still drowsy, maybe, or his rationality is all twisted up in his frustration with Iwa-chan, but whatever his excuse, common sense is not with him when he tips forward and kisses Suga.

Suga inhales sharply, but doesn’t pull away. Tooru can feel his hand soft against his cheek, fingers curling in his hair, and he pushes forward a little more until he’s nearly hovering over Suga. He shifts until they fit together neatly, his hand dipping somewhere near Suga’s waist, and kisses him languidly. Suga accepts it like they’ve been doing this for ages, his mouth opening soft and easy when Tooru presses with his tongue and _oh_ , it’s nice, this is nice, this is-

Tooru pulls away abruptly, awareness screeching into his mind. Suga sighs, his eyes fluttering open when Tooru sits up, panic gripping him.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got- I’ve got to go, class, and-”

He rolls out of his bed and leaves quickly. He forces it out of his mind for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

“We need to talk.”

Tooru grimaces when he hears this, taking a few extra seconds to hang up his jacket and kick off his shoes. This really isn’t the way he wanted his evening to go, as soon as he got home from class.

“Can it wait?”

“Should it?”

“No, you’re right, as _usual_ , Iwa-chan. What did you want to talk about?”

“Don’t start an attitude, Oikawa. You know what.”

Tooru bites the inside of his cheek. It’s not often that he and Iwaizumi fight, _actually_ fight, but he’s on the defensive the moment he hears the tone in Iwaizumi’s voice.

“Fine. Let’s talk.”

“When is he gonna be out of here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? He can’t stay here forever.”

“I know that.”

“Then what’s the plan, Oikawa?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” he says, shutting the fridge a little more forcefully than necessary. Iwaizumi takes note, and his frown deepens.

“He can’t stay here.”

“Well, there’s nowhere for him to go. He’s not missing, and the police can’t take him.”

“We have to do something with him. Just because you’re _sleeping_ with him-”

“Then you figure it out!”

His voice splits when he shouts, and it’d be embarrassing if he wasn’t so overwhelmingly angry. How dare he speak so easily about-

“He’s out. This week. I don’t care where he goes, but he can’t stay here anymore.”

“That’s real fucking kind of you, Iwaizumi-”

“I’m leaving. Find a place for him.”

He leaves, the door rattling as he slams it shut behind him. Tooru stomps back into the kitchen and squeezes the counter to keep himself from breaking something. The anger throbs in his muscles, pulses in his brain, and then, slowly ebbs out of him, until he can’t keep himself upright anymore. He sinks to the floor and cries against his knees, furious with himself and Iwaizumi and whoever decided to crush his heart with difficult decisions.

He feels rather empty when he finally unfolds from his spot on the floor. He’s not hungry, but he pulls out food and starts on dinner, for Suga, at least, and himself if he gets hungry later. The ease of the tasks keeps him just occupied enough to soothe him, and he’s feeling a bit better by the time the rice is going and the vegetables are frying.

He tidies up a bit more, keeping an eye on the food, putting it away when it’s done, washing up the dishes. He makes himself a cup of tea and digs homework out of his bag. He can at least get some work done, while his mind is empty. He has all that reading to get out of the way, and-

“Ah, shoot.”

Tooru creeps as quietly as he can to his bedroom, turning the knob slowly. He’ll just grab the book he needs and slip back out, no problem. Suga should be waking up pretty soon, anyway, so maybe he won’t be too disturbed.

He only trips on something once, managing to bite off the curse that wants to spill out of his mouth, and nabs his book. The light from the hallway cuts a warm yellow square through the darkness of his room. He can’t quite see Suga, because the light doesn’t reach far enough, but he can make out his bright hair. He makes it out without further incident, and settles down to study.

He gets hungry after hour two, and curious after hour three. Suga’s usually up by 7, and it’s well past 9:30 already, and Tooru’s seen no sign of him. He cracks open the door of his bedroom again, slowly picking his way across the floor until he can stand next to the bed. He can hear Suga’s breathing, so he must still be asleep, but…

“Suga-chan,” he tries softly, and again. Suga remains still.

Tooru touches his shoulder, just a gentle press of his fingertips, but nothing. He tries a shake, and then a prod.

“Didn’t realize you were such a heavy sleeper,” he murmurs. He runs his fingers through that moonlight hair, and still Suga sleeps on. He huffs out a little breath of annoyance, but slips back out and closes the door behind him.

He panics at midnight.

Suga won’t wake up. He’s turned on the lights, clapped, shouted, but Suga doesn’t move, besides the rise and fall of his chest. His mind starts to blur, rationality completely gone, silently begging for Suga to wake up, just wake up, _please._

At 12:30, he texts Kuroo. He spends a long 15 minutes trying to calm his breathing, pacing circles around the apartment until the door buzzes, and he rushes over to let Kuroo in.

“Hey, I- um. Are you okay?”

Tooru tries to speak, but his breath stops, and tears fill his eyes for the second time that night.

“ _Shit_ , Tooru, come on. Just breathe it out with me, okay?”

In. Out.

In. Out.

He chants it in his mind, until the haze gradually lifts, and he’s aware again. He feels tear-stained and worn out, and Kuroo is looking at him with concern, holding his hand, until Tooru loosens his grip.

“What’s going on, dude?” Kuroo asks. He says it carefully, and Tooru knows it’s laced with concern, but he can’t help the sputter of giggles that escape. _Dude_.

“Iwa-chan and I had a fight, and Suga won’t wake up.”

He snorts out another laugh, and buries his face in his hands. There are times when he feels like his life is too much to handle, and the current perpetrators this time are his best friend and a stranger he’d dragged out of a pond. Hearing it outloud is just too ridiculous.

Kuroo waits patiently for him to continue, and that’s something Tooru’s always liked about him, his instinct about other people. He can be a jackass, and he can tease mercilessly, but he’s almost always right about what other people need.

Tooru stands up, and gestures for Kuroo to follow, leading them both to his bedroom. The light is on, and Suga’s still curled up in the middle of the bed, unstirring. Kuroo steps past, and leans close to Suga. He holds a hand in front of his mouth, then presses fingers to his neck. Tooru watches him curiously from the doorway, an eyebrow raised in skepticism. Kuroo looks over his shoulder and shrugs, half a smile on his face.

“Akaashi’s in pre-med. He taught me a few things.”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s helpful.”

“With the number of times you’ve ended up in the hospital with stupid injuries, I can only imagine.”

Kuroo grins, and turns back to Suga. He presses his fingers to Suga’s wrist, over the pulse point, and stands still for a few moments. He must find what he was searching for, because he straightens up shortly, and shrugs again.

“As far as I can tell, he’s still sleeping.”

“But he’s been sleeping since this _morning_. He never sleeps this long.”

“Well, I mean, you haven’t known him for that long, so maybe it’s just a habit you haven’t seen until now. Or maybe he’s sick. Did he seem worn down or anything this week?”

Tooru shrugs in return.

“I don’t see him much during the week. He sleeps during the day and doesn’t usually wake up until dinner. He didn’t seem too out of it, though. I mean, maybe a little lethargic, but it’s been busy.”

Kuroo crosses his arms, and stares down at Suga. Tooru wonders what he’s thinking.

Eventually, he flicks on the little bedside lamp, and turns around, heading towards the door.

“What are you doing?” Tooru asks, letting himself be shuffled backwards out of the room. Kuroo clicks off the overhead light.

“He’s breathing steadily and his pulse is fine. There’s no blood that I noticed, unless you haven’t told me something and internal bleeding’s a possibility?”

He looks at Tooru with one raised brow. Tooru shakes his head a bit dumbfoundedly.

“Then we’re gonna let him continue to chill for a while. I’ve got some research to do, in the meantime. What’s your WiFi password?”

 

* * *

 

Kuroo sprawls out in Iwa-chan’s armchair, just like he used to. Tooru had flipped on the TV a while ago, aiming to distract himself with something mindless for a bit while Kuroo does whatever it is he’s doing, but he couldn't focus long enough to pick something, and left it on the news channel it’d been on. He doesn’t absorb anything, not really, more intent on sneaking glances at Kuroo, wondering what he’s looking into. Kuroo won’t show him anything, though, completely ignoring him as he stares at his laptop. He’ll gather up all his evidence and then heap it all on Tooru, once he feels like he’s set up enough strings to tug on when Tooru starts blowing holes in his arguments.

Tooru abandons the TV around 2, and gets up to make tea, just for something to do. Sleep is starting to creep up on him, and he should rest, but his mind is buzzing. He knows it’ll be a lot of mindless tossing and turning if he tries to lay down, so might as well stay up.

“I’m surprised you haven’t been bothering me this past hour, since I haven’t paid you any attention,” Kuroo says, when Tooru sets a mug on the side table next to him.

“Don’t overestimate your own ego, you goof. I’m perfectly content to sit in silence for a little while.”

“Tooru, I’m really proud of you. You’ve matured so nicely. My little bird has flown the nest.”

Kuroo cringes when Tooru drives his fingers against his neck, but he still laughs. Tooru smiles a little to himself.

He can’t stand to sit down again, so he paces, walks slow circles around the living room, the kitchen, into Iwa-chan’s dark room, threading his way back into his bedroom. Suga sleeps on, and Tooru takes a moment to surreptitiously check his breathing and his pulse like Kuroo had, before moving back into his route. He continues the circuit three more times, before Kuroo straightens up in the armchair, and watches as he walks.

“It’s not polite to stare, Tetsu-chan,” he says quietly, running his fingers along the back of the furniture as he passes. Kuroo says nothing, just smiles.

He meets Tooru in his bedroom, with his laptop tucked under his arm, and asks him to sit down. Tooru obliges, sliding down the wall until his legs are stretched out long in front of him. Kuroo crouches beside him.

“I want to show you some things, and I want you to keep an open mind, okay?”

“This sounds an awful lot like some kind of pitch.”

“Well, honestly, in some ways it is. But I’m trying to help. Just remember that, no matter how crazy you think I am.”

Tooru frowns with a little bit of concern, a little bit of hesitancy.

“You’re making that face, Tooru.”

“What, I would _never_ \- I’m not making a face.”

“You are. It’s fine, just-”

Kuroo opens his laptop, and sets it in Tooru’s lap. He clicks on a tab, and Tooru sees something that looks like a calendar of the moon.

“Alright, so what am I looking at here?”

“Moon phases. This month’s, actually.”

“Okay. So?”

Kuroo points to the screen, at yesterday’s date.

“New moon was yesterday.”

“So what?”

“So, what I’m saying is, Suga went to sleep yesterday, and hasn’t woken up yet.”

“So...he’s the moon.”

“Well…”

Tooru turns to look at Kuroo in disbelief.

“You can’t be serious.”

“It lines up. Perfectly, actually. You told me you found him the night of the full moon, almost two weeks ago, and that his energy’s been dipping off this week.”

“Yeah, _but,_ this isn’t the kind of shit that happens in real life, Kuroo. This is the kind of shit that happens in fairytales.”

“So maybe you’ve stepped into a fairytale.”

Tooru bursts out laughing. It’s loud, and uninhibited, and hysterical with his sleep deprivation, and it feels frighteningly out of control, but he can’t stop. He slumps over on the floor and laughs into the carpet, until his breaths turn into gasps.

“This can’t be real,” he says, “this can’t be real, this can’t be real, this can’t be real.”

“Stranger things have happened to stranger people, Tooru.”

“Do you even hear yourself right now? You’re trying to convince me that Suga’s the moon, or he’s connected to it, somehow, or, what, he’s a god? And now, what, he’s down on earth to spread the news of his return?”

“Have you had any dreams lately? Or felt déjà vu? I know you get that a lot, but I mean specific instances in regards to Suga’s appearance.”

Tooru snaps his mouth shut, and pushes himself to sit up. It hits him so strongly, this exact conversation already discussed, that exact expression on Kuroo’s face, but in another moment, long past. He dreamed the first night Suga crawled into bed with him, hazy, vague ideas of temples and conversations with himself, the touch of a lover. He’d forgotten about it, until now, and the little details come flooding back, like he’s dreaming it all over again, and with such clarity he could almost reach out and pull a wisp out of his mind.

“I- I-”

“It’s easy to push things like that out of your mind,” Kuroo says, very softly, “just chalk them up to coincidence, or trick your brain into forgetting them. It’s harder to accept them when they’re spread out in front of you.”

“What, exactly?”

“Old lives. Higher powers. Ancient gods in human flesh.”

“So, what, I’m having flashbacks from a previous life? Because Suga’s appeared?”

“It lines up,” Kuroo says, calm in the face of Tooru’s growing hysterics.

“But... _why?”_

“I dunno. Maybe you two are doomed to be connected.”

Tooru sighs, rubbing at his forehead. There’s too much information flooding into his head, and the juxtaposition between what must be real and what must be fantasy is making him dizzy.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he says, after a beat.

“It’s a lot, yeah.”

“It’s _stupid_ , Kuroo. Even for you. You’re telling me about gods and past lives like it’s a plausible explanation for what’s been going on.”

“I think it is. And I think you do, too.”

Tooru has to reply, has to convince himself that no, that’s not true, that’s not what he believes at all, but his tongue is leaden, dead in his mouth.

“I know you don’t believe what I believe,” Kuroo says, “and I’m not asking you to. I just want you to consider that the circumstances of what’s happening in your life right now might be...a little less realistic than what you think.”

“You seriously believe in reincarnation? And gods on earth?” he says, when he can’t take the pressure in his head. Kuroo smiles.

“Don’t you?”

Tooru looks over at Suga’s sleeping form, and he feels that same heavy weight tugging on his heart when he’d kissed Suga, god, only a day ago.

“I’m not sure what I believe,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Tooru’s nodding off, stiff and uncomfortable against the wall, as he watches Kuroo. He’s doing something with a crystal on a cord, waving it over Suga’s body and muttering something under his breath. The light of the bedside lamp catches in the crystal, and the facets of Kuroo’s silver rings, and the glitter of it is a little hypnotizing. Exhaustion is stretching him thin. He needs to sleep, Kuroo too, probably, but not yet.

“I think he’ll wake up tonight,” Kuroo says, looping the crystal around his neck, “if my hypothesis is correct.”

“You don’t even know how to spell hypothesis.”

“You get so _mean_ when you’re tired, Tooru.”

He’s grinning, though, when he says it, so the remark doesn’t cut. Tooru huffs out a laugh. He accepts Kuroo’s hand, when he offers it, and stumbles inelegantly to his feet.

“Seriously, get some rest, Oikawa. You’re swaying.”

 _“You’re_ swaying.”

“True, but I do a little better with lack of sleep than you do.”

Tooru smiles, and tilts his head down, suddenly a little humbled.

“Thanks for coming over.”

“Yeah, man, anything for a friend.”

“Seriously, Tetsurou. It means a lot.”

Kuroo squeezes his shoulder and heads towards the door.

“You want the couch or something? I can make it up for you.”

“Nah, I’m gonna grab breakfast and head to Akaashi’s. Take it easy.”

Tooru feels monumentally more tired when he closes the door behind Kuroo. Frail.

He drags himself to the bathroom, and brushes his teeth, splashes his face with water. He looks awful, truth be told, circles like smudged bruises under his eyes, his hair a mess of tangles. When he gets to his bedroom, he hesitates, looking at Suga’s small form. His mind is tumbling over the information Kuroo had suggested earlier, but he feels a sense of ease when he looks at Suga. He crawls into bed behind him and settles comfortably, naturally, falling into more dreams of strangely familiar lives. He stirs at some point, with the feeling that someone’s watching him, but it’s safe, it’s not enough of a concern to keep him awake.

He doesn’t truly wake up until that evening, disoriented and eyes thick with drowsiness. His bed is empty, but the corner light is on, and Suga’s crouched in front of his bookshelf. He groans, and stretches out his stiff back, feeling the pop of his vertebrae.

“Suga-chan,” he says, when he can keep his eyes open for more than a second, “what are you doing?”

It’s a whisper, but Suga still turns briefly and smiles at him, a book in his hands.

He watches Suga’s back, until his eyes feel heavy again, and he has to move or he’ll ruin his sleep schedule for days. He slips out of bed, and crawls slowly over to where Suga’s kneeling. There’s quite a few books on the floor, stacked neatly in a semicircle of easy reach around Suga. He hooks his chin over Suga’s shoulder, and circles his arms around the small waist.

“Are you studying?” he asks, and Suga nods slightly. “Why?”

Suga clears his throat, his hand coming to rest at the dip in his collarbone. It’s an oddly pretty gesture.

“Words are difficult,” he says, softly, and Tooru thinks he might have some semblance of understanding now, memories of the dreams filtering lightly over his mind, that Suga’s muteness had been imposed not out of loss, but a lack of knowledge.

They sit in silence, Tooru watching Suga’s fingers run over the pages of his books, tracing the shapes of words and testing them on his tongue, stringing them together into short sentences under his breath.

“Did you practice at night?” he asks. Suga nods.

“Is it getting any easier?”

Fingers across paper.

“I’m glad you woke up,” Tooru says. It tumbles out of his mouth, and surprises even him. Suga stops his movements, and turns his head just enough that Tooru can nearly taste his supple mouth again. The heat from that movement alone stirs something low in his belly, and he squeezes his arms a little tighter around Suga’s waist.

The front door opens, breaking whatever spell had settled across the two of them. He knows it’s Iwa-chan back again from the sound of the footsteps, and the warm contentedness that had captured him for a few moments disappears. He groans, and buries his face in Suga’s neck.

“Don’t ever become an adult, Suga-chan,” he says. Suga laughs.

 

He was expecting an easy fix to his argument with Iwa-chan, apologies, a quick chat, everything back to normal.

It’s anything but.

Iwa-chan spends the night in his room, and leaves Sunday afternoon with hardly a word, and Tooru doesn’t see him again until classes on Tuesday. The anger and fear he feels in regards to Iwa-chan is lost in Suga, however, and Tooru is all too happy to ignore the problem with his best friend for the time being. He chases sweetness out of Suga’s mouth, and indulges in raw pleasure, letting Suga bloom beneath him like a moonflower, the two of them moving in a sync that never should have been forgotten. He finds it harder to leave the apartment in the mornings, Suga drowsy and content beside him, sneaking kisses and soft touches. Tearing himself away from that takes all his willpower, and even when he’s leaving, there’s still a hysterical part of his mind that tells him to run back, that he can’t live without Suga, not again.

He’s not sure where the _again_ part comes from.

He skips his last class on Thursday and comes home early. Suga’s asleep, but wakes slowly when Tooru undresses and slides into bed with him.

“Hi,” Suga says, laughing when Tooru kisses his mouth and pulls at his shirt. He shivers when cool air meets his skin, but lets Tooru finish undressing him, biting his lip to fight back his giggles when Tooru runs his fingers over ticklish skin. He sighs when Tooru runs his mouth over the points of his bones, and shudders when Tooru’s mouth dips lower, and moans softly when Tooru touches him.

He loves every second of it, every tiny jump and jolt and quiver of Suga’s body, the way it opens so sweetly for him, the noises curling out of Suga’s throat. He takes Suga’s hand in his own, and pins it gently above Suga’s head, pushing in a little harder, and relishing in the tilt of Suga’s mouth as it falls open, pink and lovely.

Later, Suga falls back asleep against Tooru’s chest. Tooru traces swirls and lines and circles over his back, and imagines constellations in the freckles across his skin, but is interrupted when he hears the sound of the door opening.

He can follow the sound of Iwa-chan moving throughout the apartment based on his footsteps. He follows Iwa-chan from the front door to the kitchen, his room. He’s not expecting the footsteps to grow louder outside his door, however, and he’s expecting it even less when a quick knock comes.

“Oikawa?”

“Yeah, just a second.”

He slips out of bed and dresses enough to be decent, his heart sinking when he opens the door and closes it quietly behind him. Iwa-chan looks tired.

“I’m sorry about this weekend.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“It got out of hand, and it shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk, though. Seriously.”

Tooru feels a little like his entire world shatters, in that moment. Reality comes crashing back around him, and forces its way through all his dizzy dreams and memories, splitting the happy little fantasy he was living in into a hundred tiny pieces.

“Yeah, I um, I-”

It’s a little hard to breathe; he can’t, he can’t-

“It’s alright, come on. Keep breathing, okay? Let’s go sit.”

No one can calm his as easily as Iwa-chan, and in that moment, Tooru’s overwhelmingly grateful for his best friend. He starts, and stops, takes deep breaths, and sighs, but finally struggles through his own hesitancy.

“Suga wouldn’t wake up on Friday,” he blurts out, words jumbling around in his brain as he tries to choose the right ones.

“He wouldn’t wake up, and I panicked and asked Kuroo to come over. Suga really was just sleeping, but he wouldn’t wake up, and I don’t know where Kuroo got the idea, but he looked up lunar cycles and _hypothesized_ that Suga has some connection to the moon.”

“Like, a spiritual connection, or…?”

“Supernatural, I think, like higher spirits and gods. He then asked me if I’ve been having any dreams or feelings of déjà vu since Suga’s been around, and I didn’t tell him, but I think he figured out that I have, and-”

“So, okay, stop for a second. Let’s just take this at face value. Higher spirits in the flesh, I guess, and dreams. What does that mean?”

Tooru shrugs, picking at a thread on the hem of his shirt. He knows Iwa-chan’s not buying his hesitancy for a second, but he still finds himself struggling to muster up the courage to say what’s been weighing on his mind.

“Reincarnation.”

“What the fuck kind of- okay. Okay. I’m not gonna go there. You don’t sound convinced of this.”

“How can I be?!” It bursts out of him, and this feels like an argument that’s happened before. He’s seen it. “That’s an absolutely insane assumption.”

“It is.”

“Kuroo’s always coming up with wild shit like this.”

“He really is. You look like you’re about to say ‘but,’ though.”

“But…”

Tooru scrubs his hands through his hair.

“The _dreams,_ Hajime! I can’t stop feeling like I’ve been through this all before, and I keep having these dreams where it’s me, but it’s not me, and I’m in temples talking to myself while I lay out offerings or something, and then I feel moonlight on my skin, and I wake up feeling _whole_ , and-”

He stops when Iwa-chan squeezes his knee gently.

“Tooru, take a breath. Alright? You with me?”

Tooru nods.

“You like him. Suga. Don’t try to give me that look, I know you’re sleeping with him.”

“Don’t say it like _that_ , god.”

“Whatever. Look, you’ve had a hard year, I know, and whatever you have with him is nice, and that’s fine. Kind of. It’s a little abrupt, honestly. But you’re working yourself up about stuff that doesn’t make any sense, when I think you’re just infatuated with him.”

“But, the dreams-”

“-are coincidental. This isn’t the first time you’ve been convinced you’ve unlocked a secret about a ‘past life’ or whatever, and it’s not the first time we’ve figured out how easily influenced you are by outside opinions, and your own mind.”

Iwa-chan smiles hesitantly, and Tooru feels the weight that’s been sitting in his chest only increase, his heart aching. He is startled with the vague realization that he’s heard this before, a conversation in another lifetime with his closest of friends, one that hadn’t believed him either. But he buries his disappoint, that Iwa-chan’s so easily brushing this off, and dredges up a smile, and that’s it. Conversation done, friendship repaired, for now. He feels a little empty, even when Suga steps out of the bedroom and smiles sleepily at him.

 

* * *

 

The dreams have begun to get frightening.

It’s the same content, the temple, himself but not himself in ceremonial robes, lighting incense and preparing offerings, polishing mirrors until they looked like moon circles. Fingers on the fastenings of his robes. Fabric slipping over his shoulders. The touch of a cool mouth against his, moonlight cradled in his palms.

No, the content itself isn’t frightening. It’s the clarity in which he dreams these dreams, the line blurring between memory and dream, that’s so scary. He wakes up with gasping breaths, sweat damp in his hair, the pounding of his heart only calmed when Suga presses his hand flat over Tooru’s chest. It’s so _real_ , what plays out in his head.

When he leaves the apartment on Monday morning, he can’t separate dream from reality, memory from fantasy. He can’t remember what actually happened to him, and what is imagined. He hides in the bathroom after his morning class and fights off panic. He makes it through another class, but gives up and heads home when his stomach is too twisted to eat lunch. He goes straight to his room when he gets back, where Suga’s still curled up, like he had been that morning. Tooru climbs across the bed and fits himself behind Suga, and feels complete. He stays home sick the rest of the week.

 

* * *

 

“Suga, did you love me before?” he asks in the middle of the night.

“What do you think?” Suga whispers into his mouth, and kisses him.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up on Friday in an empty bed, and his heart leaps to his throat. There’s something wrong. It’s loss like before, except not before, not him, it’s not him, they’re just _dreams-_

He’s dying all over again, and Suga’s departing.

He stumbles out of bed and pulls on some clothes, tripping out of his bedroom and startling Iwa-chan where he’s spread out with homework in the living room.

“Oikawa, Jesus, are you okay?”

“Where’s Suga?”

“What? Come on, you need to sit down for a minute-”

“Hajime, _please!_ Where is he? He’s leaving, I can’t live without him.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Tooru, hey! Look at me. Tooru!”

He’s tearing out the front door, jacket hanging off his shoulders, and all he can think about is Suga. He runs down the sidewalk, shouldering his way through crowds of people who look at him strangely, begging some higher power, _please, please, I need him, I need-_

He makes it to the little corner park before Iwa-chan catches up with him, and only because he has to stop and catch his breath.

“Hajime, no! Please! I need him, I have to find him-”

Hajime is unrelenting, and only squeezes his arms tighter when Tooru tries to throw him off. Frustration bubbles up in his throat, and he screams, hot tears slipping out of his eyes. Hajime’s murmuring something into the back of his neck, but Tooru can’t hear it over the sound of his hysterical sobs. He feels like his heart’s being ripped apart, the cold steel of a blade piercing it, betrayal from his closest friend.

He clutches at his chest. There’s nothing there.

He’s dying, again, alone, head full of visions of the past, dirt smeared on his face, blood sticky on his palms. He sinks to his knees, and Hajime sinks with him, arms still secured around him, holding the knife to his heart.

He’s on the sidewalk, his hands scraping concrete, but he can feel the memories licking into his head, twisting his brain around until he doesn’t know reality anymore.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t want to go to the hospital. Hajime had dragged him upright and forced him to walk, before anyone called the police for disruption of the peace. He made tea, and pressed a hot mug into Tooru’s hand. It had gone cold on the side table.

Hajime speaks in hushed tones on the phone, tucked around the corner in the kitchen. Tooru can’t hear him, but his mind imagines the conversation anyway, _unstable_ and _breakdown_ and _stress, heartbreak, what do I do?_

He stands up from the couch, and slips into his room. He sees Hajime when he passes the kitchen, concern and fright laced together in his eyes, and a pang twinges in his gut, but the moment passes when Hajime turns away, and Tooru slips into his room.

He feels numb, when he lays down, like all his insides are cushioned by shock, pressing and smothering his brain to the point where he can’t think clearly. He doesn’t sleep, he _can’t_ , but he feigns it when Hajime knocks lightly on the door, and turns the handle when Tooru doesn’t respond. Light cuts in from the hallway, a golden beacon Tooru can feel from behind his closed lids. He softens his breathing and keeps himself relaxed, as Hajime steps quietly forward, and presses a hand to his forehead.

He backs away. The door closes softly, and Tooru is left alone.

 

* * *

 

Tooru wakes up in darkness, but feels the presence of another.

“Suga,” he croaks out, his head swimming with a pressure of confusion.

“Tooru, do you remember?” Suga says, clutching his hand. “Do you remember how you were taken from me?”

Yes, he remembers. Long ago.

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I found you once, not long ago, but you brushed it off.”

He brushed it off, like cottony spiderwebs in the dark corners of his mind.

“It’s okay, Tooru, no tears now. It’s hard to understand, I know. It’s hard to give yourself over to this belief, when the world around you refuses to let you.”

It’s hard. It’s so hard.

Suga, stay with me.

“I can’t stay.”

No-

“I’m not meant to stay, but you are. We’re trapped together, you and I, in this cycle of ebb and flow, but I will always come back to you. You might not always remember, but I will never forget.”

Suga leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to his mouth, and Tooru knows this is goodbye.

“Please, no, you can’t leave me-”

His chest heaves when his breath starts coming in rapidfire pants, but Suga presses a cool hand to Tooru’s cheek and wills him into calmness. He kisses Tooru again, and Tooru already aches with the loss.

“Sleep, Tooru. Rest.”

Suga presses a fingertip to each of Tooru’s eyelids, and touches once across his lips. He knows the gesture is familiar, and it soothes him enough to slip off into sleep, his mind blissfully empty of dreams.

 

* * *

 

It’s cold, on the roof.

Autumn has taken firm hold of the air, and the days are crisp and cool, the nights almost bitter. His breath comes out in great clouds of fog, and he shivers underneath his quilt. Iwa-chan will be looking for him; Iwa-chan is probably worried, because Tooru doesn’t disappear anymore, and if he’s gone for too long, Iwa-chan always knows where to find him.

It’s okay, though, he’s alright. Iwa-chan will find him, and he will be perfectly alright.

He looks up at the moon, glowing like a silver coin in the velvety darkness of the night. Just there, at the edges, Tooru can see the eclipse, starting to creep its way across the bright surface. He wishes he’d thought to drive out to his parents’ house and find his old telescope, so he could really get a good look at the eclipse, but he can’t quite handle all their worried glances, and their subtle suggestions of therapists in his area. Not yet.

Besides, the moon is so bright, he almost doesn’t need the binoculars he’d dug out of the closet. He shifts, trying to get a little more comfortable in the camp chair he’d lugged up onto the roof, watching the eclipse progress. The moon is turning an orange-y red, like a splash of old blood on marble, as the shadow settles more deeply across its surface.

 _Blood moon_ , he’d heard, and read online. Others talked about the foreboding of the blood moon, the curse of it. He’d just laughed, knowing somewhere deep down a blood moon was more than a sinister whisper, that there was real power in its presence, for those who knew how to use it.

He hasn’t had the dreams since that night, but he does remember. He remembers a month of feeling whole, like something that had been shaken loose long ago had been stitched up tight and secure. He remembers raw, true happiness, a soft smile, and a desolation of departure. He chooses to forget the old dreams that had plagued him, taking up the habit of asking Iwa-chan what was real and what wasn’t. Iwa-chan indulges, whenever he asks, and it warms his heart with gratefulness for his friend.

He stands up, throwing off his blanket. He holds the binoculars to his eyes, and focuses hard past the double vision. A sensation of the past floats through his mind, an offering of honey, sweet in his mouth, a kiss soft as a sigh, and he accepts it, lets the warmth of it flood over him, until he can almost feel the sensation of a smile against his skin. The dreams he will forget, but the moments, when they wash over him, he clings to.

He steps a little closer to the edge of the roof, for a better view. The shadow has almost passed completely over the moon, and he feels a giddy moment of strength circling over him. Below, the door to the roof bangs open, but he ignores it. Just a minute more, and it’ll be done. Now is not the time for distractions.

He feels something almost click inside of him, when the shadow completes its path, his stiff heart unlocking. He welcomes the foreign touch, lets it fill him and soothe him, like cool silk.

Someone’s climbing the ladder up to the roof, but it’s almost over, he’s almost whole once again, all his broken pieces being put back together, moonlight filling in all those empty places inside of him. He tilts forward a little more, swaying on the edge of the roof, waiting for that embrace, but he’s tugged backwards, back onto hard concrete and cold, rotten air.

“Oikawa,” Iwa-chan says, his hand twisted in the back of Tooru’s shirt, “you with me?”

Tooru’s fright lessens when he sees who’s holding him, and he smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, looking up at the sky, “I’m here.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](downmoonwrites.tumblr.com)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/dyefighter)


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